J

The narrator of this small, powerful, erotic book is called J. She is an art student in Liverpool, which is all we ever really know about her. She has a one-room flat in an Edwardian terrace, and the lady she pays her rent to is the madame of a brothel. A small brothel, a select brothel, with only quiet, well-dressed, respectable ‘clients.’ But J has to pay her rent of course, so she also has a job. She is a waitress in a small café, owned and run by a man called only Chef.

Chef is not a bad man. He does not harass her, or even underpay her. They hardly talk. But one night, after she has cleared away before going home, he invites her to share a drink. Very soon, almost as if by magic, J finds herself spread out on the steel table, naked, with Chef – still hardly talking – making love to her. J does not understand. J does not dislike it. Next night, it happens again. And still she does not understand.

J’s life, so quiet, so humdrum, becomes truly strange. Chef is an experimenter, and J is the canvas on which he paints his fantasies. J wants to be an artist, and she fantasises too. She thinks she loves him – he says she does – and she is prepared to do for him whatever he might ask. The things he asks become stranger, and stranger and stranger. Before very long, they involve strangers, too. And still J does not understand. Her landlady joins in. Chef comes to the house. The clients multiply.

Weirdly, J does not feel abused. She does not know what is going on, but she feels safe. Her life, her world, becomes confined to sex, and satisfaction. And not just other people’s. At the end of every chapter, a third person fills in the gaps. Not all of them, not fully.

J’s life goes on. J does not understand. Her life, one could say, becomes fifty shades of grey. She does not understand…